Deep beneath the arid expanse of Iran’s Central Plateau, shielded by formidable anti-aircraft batteries and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, lies a subterranean fortress that has become the new focal point of global nuclear anxieties.
Known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or "Pickaxe Mountain," this sprawling 2.7-square-kilometer site sits just south of the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, roughly 140 miles from Tehran. It was birthed from the ashes of repeated sabotage and the devastating 12-day war of 2025, during which the United States executed Operation Midnight Hammer to cripple Iran’s above-ground and shallow nuclear infrastructure at Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz. In response, Tehran retreated deeper into the earth.
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| A June 15, 2026, satellite photo showing Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility (upper right) and the under-construction site at Pickaxe Mountain directly to the south. (Photo: Planet Labs PBC via AP) |
Experts from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimate that Pickaxe Mountain plunges between 80 to over 100 meters underground. As digging relentlessly continues, the facility has evolved into a labyrinth of concrete and rock designed to withstand the most devastating conventional weapons in the American arsenal, rendering it a blind spot even to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.
Despite the unprecedented depth of the facility, the rhetoric emanating from Washington remains unyielding. In a recent Oval Office address alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, U.S. President Donald Trump explicitly threatened the under-construction site, declaring that American bombers would be hitting the area "pretty soon" and "very heavily." The U.S. military relies on the GBU-57 bunker-buster bomb, a massive munition capable of plowing through at least 60 meters of earth before detonating.
While military planners have reportedly discussed deploying these bombs in rapid succession to punch through to the deepest chambers, it remains highly uncertain if even a sequential strike could breach Pickaxe Mountain.
Trump acknowledged this uncertainty but maintained a posture of absolute deterrence, emphasizing that the U.S. is closely tracking Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium—which reached near weapons-grade levels of 60 percent prior to the 2025 strikes. As the two nations continue their violent exchanges over the Strait of Hormuz, this untouched mountain facility represents a looming, impenetrable variable in a rapidly escalating war.
The stakes of this underground arms race are profoundly compounded by shifting domestic leadership in Tehran and a broadening theater of regional conflict. The sudden death of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening moments of the recent war on February 28 has created a dangerous ideological vacuum.
While the elder Khamenei once issued a verbal religious decree declaring nuclear weapons un-Islamic, his successor and son, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, has notably refrained from reaffirming this fatwa.
This silence amplifies Western fears that the cascading centrifuges potentially spinning deep within Pickaxe Mountain could eventually be tasked with closing the final gap to 90 percent weapons-grade purity. While transforming that fissile material into a miniaturized, missile-ready warhead would require months or years of highly detectable engineering, the geographical fortification of Pickaxe Mountain offers Tehran an unprecedented shield.
As tit-for-tat collateral attacks strike the Russian-run Bushehr plant, the cleared Darkhovin site, and the UAE’s Barakah facility, Pickaxe Mountain stands as a chilling monument to a conflict that has moved from the diplomatic negotiating table to the deepest, darkest trenches of the earth.
Tyler A. Nguyen • Source: AP
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